Father Unknown (44 page)

‘Let’s hope she hasn’t got a shopful of customers,’ Daisy said as she locked up the car, then, taking Mavis’s arm walked across the street with her. ‘If it is crowded, maybe we’d better go and have a cup of coffee or something until there’s a lull.’

Daisy was very nervous now, suddenly aware that it was a breach of Ellen’s trust to foist Mavis on to her like this. But there was no going back, Mavis was determined to see her, and besides, Daisy was sure Ellen would be glad once the deed was done.

‘That
is
the place where we bought my bag,’ Mavis said excitedly when Daisy pointed out the swinging sign up ahead. ‘It wasn’t called “Chic Boutique” then, but I remember the bow windows.’

‘Just wait here while I look and see who’s inside,’ Daisy said as they approached.

The sunshine had brought out crowds of people, but hopefully most were only window-shopping on the way to the Heath. Daisy darted forward and glanced through the window. She could see Ellen bent over the counter writing something. The shop was empty, unless of course there was someone in the changing-room.

‘It’s okay, no one there,’ Daisy reported back to Mavis who was leaning heavily on her walking stick, looking a little anxious now.

As the door-bell tinkled, Ellen looked up, saw it was Daisy and smiled. ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ she said.

Daisy stepped down into the shop, Mavis following right behind.

‘Look who I’ve brought to see you,’ she said.

There was utter silence for a second or two. Ellen looked at Mavis as if she didn’t know her, and when Daisy turned to see the older lady’s reaction, she saw she had turned very pale and had her hands up to her mouth.

‘What is it?’ Daisy asked, thinking the surprise meeting was too much for the old lady.

‘That’s not Ellen,’ Mavis gasped out. ‘It’s Josie!’

Chapter Twenty-two

Mavis’s statement seemed to hang in the scented air of the shop. Daisy looked from her to Ellen in astonishment. Ellen looked equally astounded and shaken, her brown eyes wide and staring.

The total silence seemed to last minutes. Daisy was unable to think of anything to say. But Ellen broke it. ‘Oh, Mavis,’ she said reprovingly, ‘of course it’s Ellen, I’ve just smartened myself up, that’s all.’

Mavis took a step forward, tottered and her stick fell from her hand. All at once she appeared to be about to faint.

It was Ellen who rushed forward and caught her while Daisy stood by, too stunned to move. ‘Help me take her out the back,’ Ellen ordered her. ‘It’s quite a climb up that hill and very warm in here. Quickly now.’

Taking one arm each, they half carried Mavis through the shop and storeroom out to the little yard and sat her down on the bench. Ellen nipped back in doors and returned seconds later with a damp cloth and a glass of water.

‘Fancy you thinking I was Josie,’ she said tenderly as she put the cool damp cloth on Mavis’s forehead, but she smiled as if it was amusing to her. ‘Surely I don’t look that much like her? Now, what are you doing up here anyway, gallivanting around Hampstead? You’ve given me quite a turn too.’

‘I’m sorry, Ellen, it was all my idea,’ Daisy blurted out. ‘I thought I had to bring you together again.’

‘You are too impulsive for your own good,’ Ellen said tartly. ‘As it happens, I’d been thinking that I should contact Mavis again. I
am
very pleased to see her. But shocks like this aren’t good for anyone, let alone someone of her age. Go and make us all a cup of tea and lock the door.’

Daisy went off feeling very ashamed of herself.

After locking the shop door she returned to the yard while she waited for the kettle to boil. Mavis’s colour was coming back and she was looking up at Ellen as she continued to hold the damp cloth to her forehead.

‘Why did you shut me out of your life?’ Mavis asked in a small shaky voice.

Daisy felt a surge of relief. Clearly Mavis was only confused earlier.

‘It was never anything personal,’ Ellen said in a soft, sweet voice, stroking the older woman’s head. ‘I was in such a state after the fire. I could hardly wash and dress myself, much less talk to anyone, especially you who would have brought back so many more memories.’

‘But just a little note would have done.’ Mavis’s lips were quivering. ‘Anything so I knew your mind was still intact.’

Ellen looked shamefaced. ‘I never meant to hurt you,’ she said. ‘I was so caught up in my own hurt I didn’t think of anyone else.’ She put her hand on Mavis’s shoulder. ‘Then there came a time when I knew I had to step out on a new road, and that meant putting aside everything that went before, even you.’

‘Frank died five years ago,’ Mavis said reproachfully, her voice still a little quavery.

‘Oh Mavis, I’m so sorry.’ Ellen pressed Mavis’s two hands between her own. ‘He was such a good man, and had I known I would have sent flowers at least, but I haven’t kept contact with anyone from Cornwall.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Mavis replied, looking up at Ellen, her blue eyes watery. ‘He was eighty-eight, a good age as they say, and I’m lucky to still have my children and grandchildren around me.’

They had a cup of tea together, but Daisy could see that Mavis still wasn’t right. She wasn’t trying to talk to Ellen, in fact her expression was vacant, and when Daisy suggested she took her home to Finchley she nodded gratefully.

Ellen was very solicitous, she took Mavis’s telephone number in Finchley and said she’d ring her later, and perhaps the following day they could meet for lunch. Mavis did appear to rally a little then, she said that coming up to London had been more tiring than she expected, and perhaps it was time she acted her age.

Ellen took Daisy aside before she went to get the car. ‘That was a really stupid and dangerous thing to do,’ she said curtly, and her brown eyes were dark with anger. ‘Now, just make sure you get her home safely and make her have a lie-down. And don’t you dare try to interfere in my life again. I won’t stand for it.’

Mavis was very quiet on the way home, she appeared to be in a world of her own, and coupled with Ellen’s angry words, Daisy’s anxiety deepened by the minute. At the door of her granddaughter’s house the old lady fumbled in her handbag for the key Harriet had given her, and failed to find it, so Daisy had to dig it out for her.

As Harriet had said earlier that she was going out, and wouldn’t be home before five, Daisy led Mavis into the house with the intention of making them both tea. As they got into the hall Mavis stumbled, almost falling right over, and Daisy saw she was still very pale and that her hands were shaking.

‘I think you’d better have a little nap,’ she said gently, and helped her into the lounge and down on to the couch. ‘I’m sorry, Mavis, I shouldn’t have talked you into it. Have a little sleep and I’ll stay until Harriet gets back.’

‘Daisy, sit down,’ Mavis said, and though her voice was tremulous it still had a note of command. ‘That wasn’t Ellen. It
was
Josie. I know it was.’

Daisy groaned inwardly, she had thought that silliness was over. But given how shaky Mavis was, she thought she’d better humour her, so she sat down beside her on the couch.

‘You always said they were very alike,’ she said, keeping her tone light. ‘Thirteen years is a long time not to see someone. You’re just confused because she doesn’t look frumpy any more.’

‘Thirteen years is nothing when you’re eighty-six,’ Mavis said, fixing her eyes on Daisy as if daring her to argue with her. ‘That woman’s voice isn’t Ellen’s, it’s too London. She never had a waist as small as that either, and she couldn’t have walked in those high-heeled shoes, not if she practised for fifty years. She certainly wouldn’t have a dress shop like that one. That was Josie.’

‘Oh, Mavis,’ Daisy said in exasperation. ‘How can it be Josie? She died in the fire.’

‘Someone died in the fire. A young woman with red hair and good teeth. Everyone thought it was Josie because she was staying there at the time, and because the police found someone who called herself Ellen in her flat in Bristol the next day.’

Daisy said she was going to make the tea. She hoped that after a rest the old lady would come to her senses.

‘I don’t want more tea,’ Mavis said petulantly. ‘I’m not senile yet. If that had been Ellen you wouldn’t have got me out of that shop so quickly. But I had to get away, to think it through.’

‘And what did you come up with?’ Daisy said sarcastically.

Mavis had a faraway look in her eyes. ‘The day of the fire was Albert’s birthday. Ellen always tried to get down for that, I only remember her missing it once or twice. I bet she was there too, but arrived so late in the evening no one saw her.’

‘Wouldn’t she have told you if she was coming down?’ Daisy asked.

‘Not necessarily, she liked to surprise people, you take after her in that respect! Josie knew this as well as anyone, maybe she even set it up by getting Ellen to leave her car up on the road so Albert wouldn’t hear it! I can just imagine her bursting through the door with a cake and a bottle of whisky for him. That was her style.’

‘Oh, Mavis.’ Daisy wanted to laugh. It was such a farfetched idea.

‘I bet you anything that’s what happened,’ Mavis insisted. ‘They all had a lot to drink and then went off to bed. Except for Josie. She set the fire, then drove Ellen’s car back to Bristol, let herself into her flat and became Ellen from that moment on.’

‘Mavis! No one could get away with that,’ Daisy said impatiently.

‘Couldn’t they?’ Mavis raised one eyebrow. ‘As little girls everyone mixed them up. It was only once they were older and began to have distinct styles of their own and different kinds of clothes and hair-styles that it became obvious which was which. No one knew Ellen as well as Josie – once she was in her flat she could put on her clothes, do her hair like hers, and who would know the difference?’

Daisy shrugged. She wasn’t going to buy that one.

‘Only someone like me,’ Mavis said tartly. ‘Someone who knew Ellen inside out. That’s why Josie wouldn’t come down for the inquest or the funeral. It was rubbish about her being out of her mind with grief. She knew she wouldn’t fool me for a minute. Even with her being as sweet as honey just now, I knew. I didn’t say any more, because if she can kill her parents and her sister to get what she wants she wouldn’t think twice about you or me.’

Daisy gulped. Mavis’s idea did have a peculiar ring of truth to it. But then some of the more outrageous things she’d told her about Josie did too, and Ellen had given a quite different slant on many of those.

‘But her signatures on legal documents, cheques and things?’ Daisy pointed out. ‘How would she get round that?’

‘People can learn to copy others’ handwriting,’ Mavis said with a shrug. ‘Look at all the credit card frauds there are! If Josie was clever enough to fake her own death, she’s quite clever enough to do a bit of forgery.’

Daisy just sat there for a minute mulling everything over in her mind. She couldn’t believe Mavis’s idea, it was just too melodramatic. Besides, such an audacious and cunning plan could only have been executed by someone utterly ruthless or half mad. If Ellen really was Josie she’d need to have nerves of steel, acting ability and incredible determination to continue to hold it together for such a long time afterwards. From what she’d heard about Josie she was weak and even a little stupid.

Harriet got home at five. She was very like her brother Tim, tall and with a slim build. She wore wire-rimmed spectacles and her fair hair was tied back in a single bunch. When she saw her grandmother looking so nervy and pale and heard what had happened, she was quite sharp with Daisy.

‘She’s an old lady, Daisy, and she’s entitled to calm and peace of mind at her age,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think it was a good idea to see Ellen again, not after what she put her through before, and now it’s sent her gaga.’

‘I am not gaga,’ Mavis insisted indignantly. ‘You should call the police and get them to arrest that woman. She’s a murderer.’

Daisy didn’t know what to say or do. She certainly didn’t think Mavis had gone gaga, as Harriet put it, but on the other hand she didn’t believe Ellen was really Josie either. If they called the police they would all look ridiculous.

Daisy went out into the kitchen with Harriet, apologized for being responsible for upsetting Mavis, then ran through her theory again. ‘Do you think she might be right?’ she asked. ‘I don’t, I can’t believe anyone could do such a thing, let alone someone like Josie, who was nothing more than an air-head model on drugs. But you know your grandmother a great deal better than I do, and you must have known the Pengellys.’

‘Yes, I do know my grandmother very well,’ Harriet said. ‘She’s got a keen mind, but she reads too many murder mysteries. I didn’t know any of the Pengellys, I didn’t go down to Cornwall as often as Tim, but I well remember how hurt she was by Ellen after the fire. Shock has brought on this lapse of common sense, nothing more. She has had years of thinking and worrying about that woman, during that time she lost her husband too. Then you swan into the picture, bring back all that hurt, and finally take her to see Ellen. Her mind can’t take it. It’s like a fuse has blown.’

‘Well, what should we do?’ Daisy was on the point of bursting into tears now, she felt so ashamed of herself for causing all this. ‘Should we call the police?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Harriet snapped at her. ‘Go home, Daisy. You’ve done enough damage for one day. I’ll put Gran to bed and call my doctor to take a look at her.’

Daisy left feeling like a whipped dog. As she approached the North Circular Road, which would be the quickest route back to Chiswick, she suddenly changed her mind and thought she had to go to see Ellen. She didn’t want to, she was afraid she would still be angry with her, but she felt she must.

As Daisy drove on down the Finchley Road towards Swiss Cottage, she felt queasy with anxiety. It suddenly occurred to her that she had been wrong in thinking that finding Ellen was the answer to everything. She had lost Joel along the road, she still had no job, and in the last few weeks she’d sensed that dad and the twins were growing cooler towards her because of her preoccupation with Ellen.